Sep 18, 2010

Creative Crafting on the Cheap! Make Your Own Toy Parachute

Over the weekend, we passed our Saturday morning doing something free and fun...and grooming our future science fair nerds! My uber-creative hubby made a tiny, working paratrooper out of: an action figure, a plastic shopping bag, and some scraps of ribbon.

My three-year-old son thought this was GREAT!

Here's how:

Cut a large octagon out of a thick plastic shopping bag. Cut small slits at each of the eight points.

Cut 8 equal lengths of ribbon or string. Tie them to the bag at the points of the octogon.

Tie the loose ends of the string/ribbon onto a lightweight toy.

Head outside! Time to get your parachute ready to go!

Here's a little picture tutorial starring my hubby on how to prep the parachute for takeoff. Pull the ribbons away from the parachute like this:

Scrunch the parachute up like this, pulling at the centermost point of the chute.

Stretch it out and fold it in half.

Now fold it in half again!

Wrap the ribbon tightly around the plastic parachute bundle you have just created, like this. Be glad you aren't in charge of doing this for a real person. Our action figure died many times over in crash landings!

Keep wrapping. Tuck your action figure next to the parachute like this.

Time to fly!!! Have someone with a good arm launch it up into the sky! Just be careful to keep it wrapped tightly when you throw it. It will come loose by itself.